NAFTA: the institutionalisation of economic openness and the configurationof Mexican geo-economic spaces

Since the second part of the 1980s, and with the negotiation and implementa tion of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mexico's growth-an d industry-orientated policies have shifted from the realm of public policy to a market-driven domain. This paper suggests that economic openness and the empowerment of market actors is provoking a new regionalisation of Mexi co's core economic activities that will play a crucial role in the coming c entury. For Mexico, the core Of NAFTA, SO to speak, encompasses a cross-bor der territoriality covering two key southern American states: Texas and Cal ifornia, and key Mexican states located from the herder to the Central plat eau of the country. I also argue in this paper that Mexico's changing econo mic territoriality, triggered by the dominance of the outward-looking econo mic model, is exacerbating regional inequalities that prevailed in the coun try even before the outset of economic reforms. This is mainly the case of Mexico's southern region, still very agriculture-orientated, and with a def icit of those export-orientated industries currently fuelling economic grow th. This region is the least endowed with mobile assets-such as technology, capital, knowledge-in order to exploit the opportunities of market-orienta ted policies. Consequently, social cohesion is at stake, not necessarily pr ovoked by the market, but exacerbated by it, and the market mechanism canno t by itself address this problem.